Teacher despairs over teaching spelling to year 6

[LaBelleDameSansPatience]

Hello everyone. I am looking for help and advice. I am new to year 6 and rather worried about the Grammar and Spelling test.
Obviously, as a primary teacher, I have taught spellings and run spelling tests, which the able spellers enjoy and the poor spellers dread (so glad that they are out of fashion at the moment, at least in the school where I teach). However, this is the first year that the complete focus is on me and the results of my year 6, several of whom are poor spellers.
I have a new HT who wants to know what I am going to do about it ... and I just don't know. I sit over my laptop every night, trying to analyse the lists of words that have come up before and get more and more miserable.
If results aren't good it could, according to HT, a) trigger an OfSTED inspection and b) give amunition to the parents who did not want a job share in my class (I also have a child and a very aged parent to care for and only work part time).
Any ideas? Teachers or parents, please??

does the ht not offer you any help and advice on how to tackle this at all?

Do you have any resources available? My son (year 6) is a poor speller. I have bought the Apples and Pears spelling books and we are slowly working through them. When we have the time and do them as required (ie 10 mins every school day) they are making a difference. They are meant to be done in a small group situation (as well as one to one). He is very behind but as an example he now knows that words like 'much' aren't spelt 'mutch'.

What does your jobshare partner think?

An Ofsted inspection for a few poor spellers? Why would job sharing make a difference to spelling? So long as you and the colleague you share with have some consistency of approach (which might be complementary strategies rather than identical) why would that be a problem? (sounds to me like the HT is being arsey TBH). Can you ask in the staffroom if any of your colleagues have good strategies you could try?

Anyhow - my DD was a poor speller - didn't stop her getting 5 in SATs (they didn't do 6 then) and into GS, its simply not the be-all and end all. Her yr8 English teacher recommended she get a little spelling machine - this seems to have helped a lot. Obviously this is not a generally applicable solution (think it cost about £12, can't remember which brand now) but might be something you could suggest to some parents if they're particularly angsty about this (and if you judge its within their means).

My Y6 is being given a weekly list with a focus on a different prefix or suffix each week, if that helps. For example, which words ending in 'e' keep the 'e' when you add -able and so on.

Try not to panic, you can only do your best.

It sounds like you don't know where to begin. It seems to me you would be better off asking your question on a teachers' forum, not a parents' one.
A poster above mentions Apples and Pears. Whilst an excellent resource, it is not something you could use alone with a whole class, who will surely all have different knowledge/skills/strategies with spelling. It would be suitable for small homogeneous groups, and your low spellers could benefit if a savvy TA could take this group on a regular, daily basis.
Hasn't your school got a policy/framework for spelling instruction?

Maybe try the Word Wasp book and Hornet literacy primer. These focus on the rules of spelling, such as if there is a short vowel in a word there is normally a double consonant...eg shopping

My HT is not being difficult; this is her first term of being a Head and she is very worried. My jobshare partner says he wishes he knew how to teach spelling successfully; he just is a naturally good speller with a visual memory, as am I. That doesn't help the children who have a different learning style.

My HT has heard that SAT's results below a 'floor mark' of about 89% of children getting level 4 in either literacy or maths, an inspection is triggered. This mark has just been raised by Gove. Literacy is now mainly the grammar and spelling test, hence the worry. Our cohorts are small, so that 4 or 5 poor spellers will make a huge difference - they would account for 25-30% of the cohort.

The parents were against a job share, mainly because they idolise my job share partner, who is a man, and therefore must have good discipline and be a good role model . They don't particularly dislike me; they just wanted to force him to work full time. After the governors' meeting to discuss the job share we were confidentially informed that the parents were 'waiting for us to fail'.

I am responsible for the G&S elements of literacy; he does the more extended writing, although I think he will have to teach some of my section. I think things like PSCHE, art, etc, will have to take a back seat for a while.

I know that, in theory, most of the spelling should have been learnt by now; my concern is that, in practice, I have a very few weeks to make big improvements. Word lists to study at home and in school are probably the way forward, although I have read research stating that word searches, writing out words, etc, don't really help, and I am against constant tests for the reasons I gave earlier.

A teacher's forum is obviously a good idea; will just have to name change as I joined most with my real name. Now I know why one doesn't do that.

It is unfair that you are not being offered more practical solutions by by the Senior leadership team.

This is a school issue.
Other years have to take responsibility to how these children spell!
Also, sometimes a cohort will be able spellers and sometimes not despite a school's best efforts- each year of children is different.
I do appreciate the ofsted fears though hope if school's value added ok for these children won't be too big an issue.
However- in the current climate- who knows....

Parent not teacher here.

I know mn view on here is spelling tests make no difference and you say they are out of favour at your school but is there any reason why you can't do them plus whatever methods of teaching spelling that are seen as better.

Most schools i know seem to do spelling tests.

At the end of the year if x number fail the test the parents will say it's no wonder as mrs labelle never bothered to send any spellings at home. Meanwhile all the other mums they know say how terrible - our dd had 10 to learn every week, our ds had to do 20 etc

Surely a test only takes 5 mins of class time - the onus is on the parents to enforce the daily hw.

Dixie, that's probably true! Even though all the research says they are pointless. At least the parents know what the children are trying to do. I think the issue is that very poor spellers still do badly, and just get more demoralized. In know that with my y1 DD, even though she really tries to learn them, by all the multi-sensory ways I can think of, and regularly, often getting 3/5 is quite depressing. And one poor child has never got a single spelling right in a test!

Sunflower, there are many wonderful things about working in a small school, but one of the downsides is that the SL team is often one very busy person! and it is the 'current climate' which is worrying us so much.

Anyway, probably just the dark days and rain is getting me down; off to plan the term's structured list of rules and tests!

Glad you took the post the way it was intended.

I only know that re research for spending too long on here. In the groups of mums I sit with at dancing/swimming etc spelling tests are definitely seen as a good thing. Fwiw my dd is yr 2 and has a weekly test and I like it. Her spelling is excellent (maybe it would have been with no tests?) but also has resulted in lots of conversations about same word different spelling, origins of words. I know they don't all have the same list.

I have one good speller, and one who is only now reaching an acceptable level in Y9. I put her poor spelling down to 'trendy' teaching in ks1, where it was deemed unnecessary/unacceptable to correct children's work and make them write corrections. As a result, the poor child doesn't have any meaningful reference point for the correct way to write a word. I have never had problems with spelling, and when I tried to tell my dd the right way to write a word, would be told that it was good enough for her teacher so why was it not good enough for me.

In my experience, teachers are told that spelling tests and learning lists are of of little use, since most children learn words for the test and and they only ever enter the short-term memory and are never trasferred to the long-term memory. Discussing and learning spelling rules, on the other hand, is very valuable, as is ensuring that children develop strategies to correct their own work (eg teacher underlining 3 incorrect words in a piece of writing and the child checking them in a dictionary and then transferring them into a spelling journal).
Dixie, it sounds as if you are using the spelling lists for exactly the kind of analysis and discussion that we are told to do in class. If only all parents did that. If only I did that with my own child more often.

I used to do spellings in year 6 like this:
week 1 - give them an old SATS spelling paper. After marking, set each child an individual target of how many I wanted them to get right next week - could be as low as 3/20 (if they got 1/20 right the first time), or as high as 18/20 - it was normally 3 or 4 more than they got right to start with. For the very poor spellers I'd tell them the words I wanted them to learn.
week 2 - re-do the same test. Each child who got their target got a house point, plus 1 house point for every spelling right over their target level. That meant that a couple of boys who really got into it often got 6 or 8 house points or even more.

It meant I could challenge strong and weak spellers at the same time and the very dyslexic boy had an achieveable target. It also made it possible for some to really excel. The children responded extremely well, and looked forward to the re-test each week. It was a bit tricky to get the tests marked and targets issued within the same lesson but I normally planned an independent grammar-type activity for them to get on with - they knew that if they were going to find out how well they'd got on then they had to leave me in peace! I also made a point of telling the whole class how each child had got on - not raw scores, but if they'd hit their target, or how many they'd exceeded it by. The only time I'd had a buzz in the lesson about spelling test scores!

Now I really like that idea!

I forgot to say that in week 2 they did 2 spelling tests - the repeat of last week's plus a new one (but you probably worked that out!)

I am an upper primary school teacher. I have been using multi sensory teaching for spelling for the past 5 years.

I start by gathering baseline data. I use a diagnostic spelling test with the whole class to get a 'spelling age' for each pupil. I then use that data to form spelling groups of ideally 4 children per group. The results are shared with the parents and pupils.

I focus on one spelling rule/diagraph etc. a week. The children are given a list of words with the focus. I do not differentiate the words unless a child has significant ASN. The list is split into 3 - List A, List B, List C. The words in List A are easier than B which are easier than C. You get the idea.

I then spend 20 min per day on spelling. 10 min of teaching strategies with the example words, e.g. Syllabification. Each day is a different strategy.

After the 10 min teaching time the children work with the example words in their groups. I have a variety of activities, e.g. Dictionary Race, Plasticine, Phonix Cubes, Spelling Tennis, Back2Board, Starspell, SMARTBoard Play and Record, BeeBot, etc. The activities stay the same for the week and the groups have a different activity each day. I differentiate through these activities. My best spellers investigate the Etymology of the words and the poorer spellers use the phonics based activities.

The children can also choose to do these activities at home for spelling homework. 'Spell in Dark' is a favourite - 'writing' the example words on their bedroom wall with a torch.

I then use the diagnostic assessment to track progress. For the poorest, each term and for the best just the end of the year.

For each class I have used this method I have seen gains ranging from 3 years progress in an academic year to just a standard 12 months progress in 8 academic months. It was very helpful in flagging up the one or two who made no progress despite a very intensive focus on spelling and required ASN support.

I hope some of this is helpful.

Hugs
l'm just mighty glad my dyslexic DD1 left primary before this rubbish was brought in.

lf it causes stress to the teachers it's nothing to the stress this sort of rubbish causes parents and pupils.

Why oh why in this age of spell checkers do we need this??!

Why oh why in this age of spell checkers do we need this??!
Why indeed.
I keep asking why we continue to insist that children must spell in ways which are clearly stupid (said, friend, brother), only because the mistakes and whims of the foreign printers who printed the first English bibles in the 16th century became enshrined in dictionaries and continue to be copied to this day.
If English spelling was made a bit more sensible (sed, frend, bruther...), or if sensible spellings began to be regarded as acceptable as the many silly traditional ones, the lives of children, parents and teachers would become much less stressful.
There was no standard spelling in Shakespeare's time.

MFL teacher not primary, but some fun strategies I use for spelling/literacy are:

Walking dictation - in pairs. Passage on one side of the room, one of the pair goes up to memorise one word at a time - with spelling. Says aloud to partner, who writes it down. Then partner's turn. They can correct each other's if they discuss why.
Sometimes I do points for each correct word, or fastest team to finish are winners, or not as a competition, depending on the fairness of the groupings.

Chinese whisper spelling

Writing out the spelling words with some medium other than pen and paper - mini w/bs are easiest, but pasta, string etc.

Body shapes spelling. You say the word, class to make a shape of each letter with body.

Body shapes reading - other way round

Sign language - basic sign language - spelling out words and understanding meaning

Do you know the game 11s? You can do this with spellings. Pupils stand up in an order (define this beforehand) start by saying the word. I tend to do boys v. girls or houses or whatever to turn into competition. Pupil 1 can say 1, 2 or 3 consecutive letters. The person who says the last letter has to sit down. If you make a mistake you start again. (Some people do mistakes sit down but I don't think this is fair).

Songs. For tricky words, split into groups and give one word each. Set time limit for each group to make a short jingle to explain the spelling of each word. After time limit, they have to teach to the others.

Have you tried memrise.com? Not sure if they have something set up for spellings in particular but have a look at it, as you can create your own mnemonics for the class, they earn points and is v motivational.

There are loads of other websites that can help you. Look for EAL stuff as well as primary stuff. Linguascope is good for EAL., and again you can create your own games - snakes and ladders etc.

Simple games like snakes and ladders or anything with dice are good. Have your spelling words cut out and in a bag for each group. To have your turn you have to spell the word correctly

For any really persistently difficult spellings, I like to make a graduated blankfill game. For this I select 10-12 words. Divide the page into four. Top left hand I have the words in full, top right I have the starting letter, blank, letter, blank etc. Bottom left I just have blanks, bottom right I leave totally blank.
We talk about memory learning methods in general, I say we are going to look at three different learning methods. They fold their paper so they can only see top left.
All pupils have two minutes to look at the words, noticing anything they can about them - what they mean, what they are similar to, anything at all that sticks out. We then discuss all these things in great detail.
I then ask them to turn to top right and fill it out without looking at top left. Set a time limit. Count how many they got right.
Then we have two/or three, depending on group minutes repeating the list of words as a group. Over and over for two minutes.
I then ask them to fill out bottom left. Did their score improve?
Then We have two minutes doing look, cover, write, check. Complete bottom right. Look at improvement. Discuss how they found each exercise.
Allow them to identify which worked best for them but stress that each of those skills is important - it is the three together, along with the action of repeatedly writing that helped them to memorise the words.
If time left, I get them to choose 5-8 of their own words to challenge themselves with.

I can think of loads more things, but not sure if this is helpful from a primary POV. If so, let me know and I'll add. :)

Hope it helps, good luck. :)

teachers are told that spelling tests and learning lists are of of little use, since most children learn words for the test and and they only ever enter the short-term memory and are never trasferred to the long-term memory.

Very true ime with DS (now 13). He struggles with spellings he easily mastered in tests back in year 3. Shocks me, too! At the time his little sister (yr1) could usually spell the same words (big ones like "sophisticated"); she is y6 now and still a very good speller. Just came naturally to her (probably that visual learner stuff).

Because to be able to use a spell checker you need to be able to make a reasonable attempt at spelling the word and if you what you enter into the spell checker is incorrect but is an actual word the spell checker won't pick it up. They are a tool but have limits in usefulness.

Startail "this rubbish" (as in a spelling test at KS2) has been around since 1995

Hoops and Stargirl; great ideas. I used to be an EFL teacher of German businessmen - seems so long ago that I had forgotten.

Think I have been so overwhelmed by new stuff; new class, new year group, new HT, new jobshare, (new caring responsibities at home with no possible good prognosis), that I have just got into a total panic.

I have just done the Arkell test with the class; I think I will be spending my weekend analysing the results!